A signed beneath the chrysanthemum crest with the character 一 and dated the eighth month of Tenna 2 (1682) is the fixed point of the second-generation Yamashiro no Kami Kunikiyo. The published sources call it the work of the second generation, its and clear and bright and the workmanship good, and they value its date as documentary evidence. He was Shinbei, the second son of the founder, the Shinshu-born pupil of Kunihiro who served the Matsudaira house, followed his lord to Fukui in , and took the title Yamashiro Daijo in Kan'ei 4 and Yamashiro no Kami in the following year with leave to cut the chrysanthemum crest. Of the smiths who carried that title through several generations, the published sources rank the founder as the most skilled and the second generation as the next most accomplished.
A second work is given to him outright: a wide , a shape the published sources call uncommon both for this smith and for his line. Over a with it carries large that break boldly in and out, a little mixed in, entering well, running, the deep and the abundant. The texts call its and exceptionally splendid. Its carvings are rare as well as accomplished, and although the hand that cut them is unknown, the blade is held to be a representative example of the -bori of the day. A gold-inlaid -otoshi cutting test is recorded on it.
Three are read toward him through the signature. Each adds the character 一 beneath the chrysanthemum crest, and the published sources state the rule they work from: no first-generation work is known with the 一, which appears from the second generation onward. Of two of them they add that the inscription closely resembles that of the Tenna 2 , so that each may be the second generation's work. They are equally careful to say that the generations of Kunikiyo, above all the first and the second, cannot at present be clearly divided, and that the question awaits further research.
On these he tempers the the published sources call the manner Kunikiyo was best at. A leans faintly toward in places, with small , deep and thick . The frays here and there in with a small , fine and run through it, and the is subdued. The runs straight into a with . On one blade the texts find the deeper and the thicker than in his usual work of this kind, the activity of and easy to see. The is an with or , the standing finely, the dust-fine and thick, fine entering, and the steel takes a blackish cast. The published sources read this as the characteristic quality of hokkoku-gane, the steel of the northern provinces, shown clearly and yet refined. The is somewhat wide for the , the body full in with at the base, and the texts find the sturdy shape imposing and pleasing.
He also tempers a . One with the 一 carries small , and pointed with a vigorous rise and fall of the hardened edge, deep in and thick in , gathering in places into muranie, with and and a subdued . The published sources set out the balance plainly: Kunikiyo's favoured manner was , yet this kind of is also part of the work, and on this blade they see the maker's ability in a that stays refined although the stands.
His designated record is a handful of signed, blades, and the published sources place him through two kinds of evidence: the two pieces they name his outright, and the 一 beneath the crest, read against the dated Tenna 2 . Because the founder and his successors kept one style and one manner of signing, the boundary between father and son remains open in the texts themselves, and a collector who meets a Kunikiyo with the 一 meets a blade the published sources lean toward the second generation without claiming certainty. Such blades come to light from time to time; the dated and the carved remain the pieces by which the second generation is known.